NGEP: President Buhari to roll out autogas scheme December 1

President Muhammadu Buhari will on Dec. 1 roll out the autogas scheme in Abuja as the Federal Government moves to create alternative fuel for automobiles and other prime movers in Nigeria.

Newsmen report that Dr Mohammed Ibrahim, Chairman, National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP), made the announcement at a meeting with media stakeholders on Saturday in Lagos.

Ibrahim said the autogas scheme and deepening domestic utilisation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) would create about 12.5 million direct and indirect jobs for Nigerians.

He disclosed that cars in the presidential fleet had been converted to run on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

Ibrahim said the need to switch from PMS (petrol) to gas was necessitated by the deregulation of petrol by the government, which had led to increment in the pump prices in recent times.

According to him, gas is a cheaper, safer and cleaner source of energy, hence the need to maximise its utilisation in Nigeria.

Ibrahim said the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) had issued new guidelines that were encouraging multifuel models for existing filling stations, which would be available nationwide within 30 months.

He said :” We need about 500, 000 conversion engineers in the next 90 days to ensure that the retrofitting of the vehicles go as planned.

“Fifty conversion centres are currently upgrading for mass conversion and trainings and over 30,000 vehicles are already running on dual fuels in Nigeria.”

Ibrahim said to deepen domestic cooking gas usage, the NGEP had set up Micro Distribution Centres ( MDC) nationwide to bridge the supply and accessories gap between the market and consumers.

Ibrahim said the NGEP would also train 10 entrepreneurs from every local government area in the country in the areas of burners, cookers, accessories production and development of MDCs. (